Windotter

In Memoriam

Maja Lisa Benson

By Norma Benson

Norma
8/18/2011

Maja Lisa was my polar star. She was a caring adult, a friend, a girlfriend, a mentor, an inspiration. She influenced so many parts of my life that I actually can't imagine who I would be if she had not set the mode and tempo of my life.

No one enjoyed work more than Maja LIsa. The Viking, our restaurant in Tacoma, was the place people went for special occasions and excellent food. The smörgåsbord was a continuing work of art, and Maja Lisa was the driving artistic force behind it. She was also the face of it, greeting President Eisenhower on one occasion, and Prince Bertil of Sweden on another in her beautiful Swedish folk dress. She set a high standard for quality work at every level, from the waitresses in the dining room, to the pantry cooks and dishwashers in the kitchen.

Maja Lisa was intensely, enthusiastically alive. There was laughter and hustle and bustle all day long from early morning food prep through the dinner hours and on to clean up after the restaurant closed at ten p.m. By midnight, all the pots and pans were clean and put away, the floors were swept and mopped, and all the sales tickets were counted. Maja Lisa was there for all the work, morning until night, and it seemed her only pause during the day was the counting of the sales tickets and money. Otherwise, running the Viking involved literally running from one task to another all day long. The restaurant was closed on Mondays, and on that day she gardened.
Sometimes, when I was very small, I would go with Maja Lisa to the bank in South Tacoma in her little Model T Ford. Every minute with her was exciting, People knew her and nodded hello, but she was too focused and busy to talk for long. She took time for me though, and for fun she would open the windshield so that the wind would blow in our faces as we drove along South Tacoma Way. In 1955, she bought her first nice car, a sleek 1955 black and white Studebaker. It was classy, but I couldn't see out very well, and to my dismay the windshield wasn't hinged.

Maja Lisa loved Henning very much. They must have had a very romantic beginning. I have the conch shell light that they had by the bed for the soft light of late night. I also still have the tiny table for two and chairs that they had in their first apartment and then in the house they bought together. That house and its garden were her pride and joy. She furnished the house well, and best of all, created a spectacular garden with several "outdoor rooms" to enjoy. Henning created the hardscape: the fences, patio cement work, greenhouse, and she filled it with grapes, flowers, whale bones to sit on, and as much vegetation as she could artfully assemble in the space available.
Henning's illness and death nearly destroyed her. They had had such a vibrant and romantic life together, filled with work and laughter, that both of them panicked when they realized he would die of cancer. She hosted his fiftieth birthday party at the Viking, and all our Swedish friends were there as well as the new Tacoma friends that Henning and Maja Lisa had made through business contacts in Tacoma. The party was December 13, and he died April 12. Those last months were the most grueling, agonizing months of our lives. Henning had one more surgery that winter, a Hail Mary attempt to remove the tumor, but instead they closed him up and we all waited for the inevitable, all except Henning. They didn't tell him the truth, and he had to endure the decline without the knowledge. The lie weighed on everyone, most of all Maja Lisa, but they believed it was the best thing to do. One horrible day we watched the fights, a favorite pastime for Henning and David, my father. Henning was receiving morphine shots that Maja Lisa administered to control the pain. He couldn't get out of bed, so they moved a mirror so that he could watch the fight on television from bed. It was a fight between Emile Griffith and Benny Kid Paret. It was one of the rare times when nearly all of us were together but not working: Maja Lisa, Henning, David, maybe a couple of Henning's friends who had come to pay their respects. As we watched, a terrible thing happened: Paret got caught in the ropes, and Griffith pounded him with hit after hit. I remember crying out that Griffith was killing him. We saw that Paret was destroyed, and suddenly everyone choked. Even Henning suddenly knew his fate.
Maja Lisa lost her interest in The Viking and Tacoma after Henning died. She stayed on for ten or twelve more years, but her heart wasn't in it. The part of her life that gave her the most satisfaction during that time was her help for certain young people. There was a girl named Rose Marie whom Maja Lisa supported financially so that she could get an education and make a better start in life. One of the most important themes that ran through her life was her generosity and compassion for others.
Her return to Sweden was a kind of relief for her, though she gave up a large part of her life in leaving. America remained an important part of who she was. You remember the Dodge? She got that from Lucille Corson, a waitress at the restaurant. Lucille is wearing the dark sweater and white collared shirt toward the back of the group in this picture. The Dodge brings together her love for cars, a reflection of the generosity (note the mountain of gifts in the foreground) she lavished on others, and the time she spent in America.
You all know the rest of her life. She continued to give of herself to family and friends. Henning and Gunnar were such close brothers and best friends, and when Gunnar needed her help, she eagerly stepped in to help him raise Marie. We talked many times during that period about how best to help Marie. Maja Lisa loved to help others, in fact, she lived to help others, and there is no one who could do it better. The same super-organized work ethic that she used to run the Viking lived in her at her beloved Gudö. I loved going there because I could see the outlines of her garden in Tacoma take shape in Sweden. She tried hard to grow rhododendrons successfully in Stockholm, and probably her rhodies are among the best in all of Sweden.
I know what a remarkable, beautiful, happy person she was. She was so kind to me and so kind to others. She taught me to sing "Mors Lille Olle" and she filled Christmas with Swedish traditions, magical decorations and wonderful gifts. Maja Lisa combined fun and work, laughter and love, and she gave it to all of us. She taught me how to curtsey properly for Prince Bertil. Most of all, she taught me about loving life and work, creating beauty in the garden, and drawing the utmost pleasure from loving our family and friends.
She is part of me, and I am grateful for the good luck of having her be such a large part of my life. Thank you for letting me share these words with you through Marie's translation. I would have been a native speaker of Swedish if Maja Lisa had had her way. As it is, my Swedish is incomplete, and so I rely on English to communicate to you my love for Maja Lisa in this short remembrance of her life.